5 ms·

Make me think of every shopowner or manager of local restaurants or something said they had headache planning schedule for part-time employees. Some even say th

Make me think of every shopowner or manager of local restaurants or something said they had headache planning schedule for part-time employees. Some even say that is the reason they are paid well. I thought, but why don't you just use some algorithms to solve it?

spankalee 2y ago
The same Operations Research group has scheduling examples for restaurants: https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/scheduling/restaurant_scheduling_example https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/schedulin...
- borelian 2y ago
  And a API for shift scheduling: https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/reference/rest/v1/scheduling https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/reference...
mlawrenson 2y ago
This is actually the exact problem I want to solve. I hear the same thing from almost everyone I've met who makes schedules. Having an OR background, I always find it insane, their problems sound straightforward to model and solve with normal solvers and no fancy techniques - and they also always sound high value. I think the problem is that OR broadly just isn't accessible. Most well supported solvers use a mathematical paradigm to define your problems, which "normal" people would look at and immediately get overwhelmed. There are nice off-the-shelf solutions for common scheduling problems, but unless you used it from the start, every business has some unique wrinkles which make fully adopting one of those solutions too hard. Either your wrinkle is not supported, or you cannot figure out how to wedge it into the tools provided. If you're really inclined to try to solve your scheduling problems better, the courses you'll find usually assume significant prior programming and/or mathematical knowledge. I think it should be possible to lean on no-code paradigms to build a modelling environment for scheduling problems that is accessible for "normal" people who need more than Excel but can't hire an OR specialist.
- viceconsole 2y ago
  I work in a restricted environment where I can't install or-tools. In order to solve our scheduling problem, I wrote a solution in Prolog that runs in a purely web-based "notebook" environment. It works well and has the benefit that non-technical users only have to deal with specifying simple "facts", then running a pre-defined query. I also have access to Google's OR API as a trusted tester and have been toying with the solveShiftScheduling endpoint. Out of the box, I don't think I'll be able to easily represent some of our constraints to work with the API. Also, our management frequently want to change the scheduling behavior, so while I can reformulate the problem to make it work with the API now, I never know what's coming down the pipe.
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  I think it will be very difficult to come up with a simple and visual way to model all the constraints that a real world scheduling problem might have.
- eitally 2y ago
  Honestly, I think the problem is people, not tools. Any time a company wants to create an exception-based vs a rules-based process, it screws things up royally from an efficiency POV. To give a stupid example, I was once responsible for all the enterprise apps at an F500 used by Finance, HR, and Supply Chain/Procurement. This included our internal travel request tool, which had embedded approval hierarchies based on HR hierarchies & levels -- as one would expect. In the 2008 recession, part of the belt tightening was a new policy that the CFO had to personally approve any international travel requests, no matter who submitted them. Theoretically it was a very easy change, but can you imagine how unpleasant it was to build that logic into the system in a non-destructive way ... but a way that also had exception-handling to deal with times the CFO wasn't personally available.
  - stackskipton 2y ago
    Travel software is hilarious one of "You think this should be simple." until you run into people. If their title is X, they must get approval. EXCEPT This one really good sales person. Their title is X but they can fly first class if they want and doesn't need preapproval unless it's 10k where everyone else is 2k. Everyone flies except that one Software Developer who has Doctor provided note about their flying phobia so they can take the train (Amtrak). If train schedule doesn't line up, they get to show up a day early or stay extra day to accommodate train schedule. Anything dealing with People quickly becomes madness.
tedunangst 2y ago
Many people don't like it when their shifts change dramatically. Sure, you can cover the night when half the staff takes off to see Taylor Swift, but calling all those people in means they in turn need their next shift covered, and so forth, and you end up with an entirely different schedule of people who have never worked together, etc. This is all fixable adding more constraints, but even just writing it all down and prioritizing them isn't trivial. They're not Legos.
- akasakahakada 2y ago
  Think about this Go players: Go is so difficult. So many options and constrain blah blah blah AlphaGo: Oh yah?
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    The optimization space for Go is very large, but the rules are relatively simple.
  - raverbashing 2y ago
    Think about this: People are not Go stones (ok, maybe managers of low margin business are, but I digress)
zetazzed 2y ago
This is a really important problem, and a lot of software attacks it. Pretty much every big HR/workforce management system includes options for it, e.g. https://www.workday.com/en-us/products/workforce-management/scheduling.html https://www.workday.com/en-us/products/workforce-management/... and https://www.oracle.com/human-capital-management/workforce-management/workforce-scheduling/ https://www.oracle.com/human-capital-management/workforce-ma..., plus a lot of dedicated providers. As some other comment mentioned, these systems have been controversial, because some of them are used in ways that don't take into account normal human needs. E.g. some schedule back-to-back shifts, change with little notice, and can't take into account sorts of real life things (like child care) that a human manager might be able to.
hermitcrab 2y ago
I have some background is combinatorial optimization. I did consider writing some software in this area or something similar, like school time table planning. But I think the problem is that each business will have different constraints (have to have at least 1 first aider on a shift, Alice doesn't get on with Bob, you can't work 2 saturday in a row, shifts change every 2 weeks, you have to have at least 12 hours between shifts etc). Anything flexible enough to be used by a sizeable percentage of organizations will be too complex for them to use.

spankalee 2y ago

The same Operations Research group has scheduling examples for restaurants: https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/scheduling/restaurant_scheduling_example https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/schedulin...

borelian 2y ago
And a API for shift scheduling: https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/reference/rest/v1/scheduling https://developers.google.com/optimization/service/reference...

mlawrenson 2y ago

This is actually the exact problem I want to solve. I hear the same thing from almost everyone I've met who makes schedules. Having an OR background, I always find it insane, their problems sound straightforward to model and solve with normal solvers and no fancy techniques - and they also always sound high value. I think the problem is that OR broadly just isn't accessible. Most well supported solvers use a mathematical paradigm to define your problems, which "normal" people would look at and immediately get overwhelmed. There are nice off-the-shelf solutions for common scheduling problems, but unless you used it from the start, every business has some unique wrinkles which make fully adopting one of those solutions too hard. Either your wrinkle is not supported, or you cannot figure out how to wedge it into the tools provided. If you're really inclined to try to solve your scheduling problems better, the courses you'll find usually assume significant prior programming and/or mathematical knowledge. I think it should be possible to lean on no-code paradigms to build a modelling environment for scheduling problems that is accessible for "normal" people who need more than Excel but can't hire an OR specialist.

viceconsole 2y ago
I work in a restricted environment where I can't install or-tools. In order to solve our scheduling problem, I wrote a solution in Prolog that runs in a purely web-based "notebook" environment. It works well and has the benefit that non-technical users only have to deal with specifying simple "facts", then running a pre-defined query. I also have access to Google's OR API as a trusted tester and have been toying with the solveShiftScheduling endpoint. Out of the box, I don't think I'll be able to easily represent some of our constraints to work with the API. Also, our management frequently want to change the scheduling behavior, so while I can reformulate the problem to make it work with the API now, I never know what's coming down the pipe.
hermitcrab 2y ago
I think it will be very difficult to come up with a simple and visual way to model all the constraints that a real world scheduling problem might have.
eitally 2y ago
Honestly, I think the problem is people, not tools. Any time a company wants to create an exception-based vs a rules-based process, it screws things up royally from an efficiency POV. To give a stupid example, I was once responsible for all the enterprise apps at an F500 used by Finance, HR, and Supply Chain/Procurement. This included our internal travel request tool, which had embedded approval hierarchies based on HR hierarchies & levels -- as one would expect. In the 2008 recession, part of the belt tightening was a new policy that the CFO had to personally approve any international travel requests, no matter who submitted them. Theoretically it was a very easy change, but can you imagine how unpleasant it was to build that logic into the system in a non-destructive way ... but a way that also had exception-handling to deal with times the CFO wasn't personally available.
- stackskipton 2y ago
  Travel software is hilarious one of "You think this should be simple." until you run into people. If their title is X, they must get approval. EXCEPT This one really good sales person. Their title is X but they can fly first class if they want and doesn't need preapproval unless it's 10k where everyone else is 2k. Everyone flies except that one Software Developer who has Doctor provided note about their flying phobia so they can take the train (Amtrak). If train schedule doesn't line up, they get to show up a day early or stay extra day to accommodate train schedule. Anything dealing with People quickly becomes madness.

tedunangst 2y ago

Many people don't like it when their shifts change dramatically. Sure, you can cover the night when half the staff takes off to see Taylor Swift, but calling all those people in means they in turn need their next shift covered, and so forth, and you end up with an entirely different schedule of people who have never worked together, etc. This is all fixable adding more constraints, but even just writing it all down and prioritizing them isn't trivial. They're not Legos.

akasakahakada 2y ago
Think about this Go players: Go is so difficult. So many options and constrain blah blah blah AlphaGo: Oh yah?
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  The optimization space for Go is very large, but the rules are relatively simple.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  Think about this: People are not Go stones (ok, maybe managers of low margin business are, but I digress)

zetazzed 2y ago

This is a really important problem, and a lot of software attacks it. Pretty much every big HR/workforce management system includes options for it, e.g. https://www.workday.com/en-us/products/workforce-management/scheduling.html https://www.workday.com/en-us/products/workforce-management/... and https://www.oracle.com/human-capital-management/workforce-management/workforce-scheduling/ https://www.oracle.com/human-capital-management/workforce-ma..., plus a lot of dedicated providers. As some other comment mentioned, these systems have been controversial, because some of them are used in ways that don't take into account normal human needs. E.g. some schedule back-to-back shifts, change with little notice, and can't take into account sorts of real life things (like child care) that a human manager might be able to.

hermitcrab 2y ago

I have some background is combinatorial optimization. I did consider writing some software in this area or something similar, like school time table planning. But I think the problem is that each business will have different constraints (have to have at least 1 first aider on a shift, Alice doesn't get on with Bob, you can't work 2 saturday in a row, shifts change every 2 weeks, you have to have at least 12 hours between shifts etc). Anything flexible enough to be used by a sizeable percentage of organizations will be too complex for them to use.